Keeping Kleenex in business

So I had another finish yesterday:



Start date February 18, 2010
Finish date March 04, 2010
Total time 42.5 hours
Fabric 28ct antique white Jubilee

If your reaction is "I don't remember seeing pictures of this..." you're right. This is the first I've mentioned it. And I really can't think of any excuse.

Post Valentine, I was surfing and came across this couple by Soda. And there are books! And they're reading. (OK, he is and she's been bored to sleep) I had to!

Getting the fabric was an investigation worthy of Poirot himself! I wanted it on the same fabric as the last one and I thought it was lugana. It wasn't. After begging my LNS to help me, and getting some looks of pity we figured out it's Jubilee.

I've decided that I like Jubilee. Sadly it doesn't come in 32 ct, which is what I use most. Oh well. 32ct shall remain Lugana, or the occasional Jobelan.

A before backstitch picture:

I like Soda patterns because even though the colour changes aren't at all gradual, the finish looks adorable and cartoony.

As for the topic: I'm sick. Horribly, horribly sick. I've been hacking up a lung and sneezing my way through boxes of Kleenex. Not fun :(
Hasn't stopped me from stitching Cirque des Cercles, but I'm sure that it's now a bioweapon.

In nicer news, the weather is heading into the positives next week! Well, there will be slush, but I'm trying to focus on the positive.

Out for Coffee HD!

And it's done in a record 6 days! after a total of 39.5 hours.

So let's see:
Started August 13
Finished August 19
A total of 39.5 hours
The fabric is 28 count antique white something
The threads are all 25 DMCs that are called for. The only thing I changed was B5200 instead of Blanc (yeah, like that made a really big difference!)
The company is Soda, a Korean company that does more really cute teen-looking couples and adorable little kid couples.
Pattern number is SO-367

This is the piece at 31 hours, after all the cross stitch. Looks very fuzzy and odd, eh? The random pink, blue and yellow blobs floating in the air were the worst. Mostly because I was having a really bad time with the counting.



So after finishing off the cross stitch I figured a couple of hours of backstitch and I'd be done, right? Wrong, oh so horribly horribly wrong.
Approximately 8.5, that's EIGHT AND A HALF hours of backstitch later I was done.



This is one piece where the backstitch does all the work. Brings out every little bit. On the negative side, trying to figure out the backstitch around the trousers was a pain. The chart was a colour one, which meant that it was black lines on very dark blue squares. A lot of swearing and frustration and I ended up with lines that look vaguely in the right place.

As I've been babbling to myself, the whole thing is just so adorably sweet, in what I've heard called a tooth-decaying manner. One of the most adorable bits is the cat/dog/animal thing that's by the boy's foot. A really big close up, because it's so fat and pudgy, but mostly because I want one...


Now I'm off to start something else. Possibly Corbett's Trick or Treat Fairy.
And this stitching frenzy is only because school starts in two weeks and I'm pretty confident I'll be too busy for much stitching.

More Coffee

So this little piece has been moving at quite a fast clip. This is at 20 hours.



I was going to switch it out for something else in my rotation, but since I think about about 2/3 done, I'm just going to finish it off.

I did spend a few hours surfing the rest of the Soda catalog, and I have a sad feeling that I'm going to stitch a whole lot more of these. This is bad because I've been cheerfully putting off a piece of obligation stitching.

My aunt wants Wentzler's Peacock Majesty. Now I love TW as much as anyone, and PM is a small piece... but all that blended colours! Hopefully since my aunt doesn't have a date she wants it by, I can send it to her late and she'll just think I'm a slow stitcher :)

New start

Since I just finished a major and a minor project, I decided to start a new one instead of finishing something in my WIP list.
This is a pattern by (I think) a Korean company SODA. It's a cute pattern, and that's the only reason I'm stitching it. I have no clue what to do with it, because it really doesn't go with my home...



It's a smallish pattern at 108x108. And it's moving very quickly...